Come Out to Play: The Warriors Fun Ride

A tribute to the 1979 cult film, this action-packed group ride pits “gangs” of cyclists against each other in friendly competition

By
Oriana Leckert

Jul 10, 2018

Alix Piorun

Just before sundown on Saturday, more than 300 cyclists descended on New York City’s Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. Some slathered each other in glitter and face paint, others whooped and hollered while pounding coffee or shoveling burritos and fries into their mouths. They were an elaborately dressed bunch: Groups wore matching Hawaiian shirts, jerseys, or jackets as pairs helped each other stretch and trios pedaled in tight circles on the grass.

They had gathered for the Warriors Fun Ride, a biannual extravaganza where costumed teams retrace the path of the titular gang in the 1979 cult film The Warriors. It begins in the Bronx at dusk and ends in Coney Island at dawn, but deviates along the way as riders visit checkpoints, take team photos, and battle other “gangs” in activities like handball, billiards, and sumo wrestling. In all, participants ride between 35 and 50 miles as they crisscross the five boroughs competing for points.

Bike messengers Kevin “Squid” Bolger and Shardy Nieves organized the first Warriors ride in 2002. It brought together 700 people from all over the world—some from as far as Europe and Japan—to ride across and celebrate a city still reeling from 9/11. “A lot of people wanted to show love to New York at that moment,” Bolger said.

Michael Green and Christopher Ryan, members of this year’s Electric Vikings team, attended the first ride. They turned the experience into a short documentary that had a successful run on the festival circuit, including the Bicycle Film Festival in New York.

“It really united different bike tribes,” Green said. “There were artists, messengers, political bike people, fitness bike people. I definitely heard stuff like, ‘I’m gonna get a fixed gear!’ So many people got more into cycling because of that event.”

Bolger recalled how that initial roll out broadened the appeal of group rides, which at the time were more associated with seasoned daredevils than with casual cyclists. “Back then, it was just the crazy bike messengers doing alleycat rides,” he said. “But all these other people came out who loved to ride in the city. That was a turning point. A lot of people said, ‘I can do this, too.’”

The Warriors Fun Ride is loosely structured as a marathon, not a sprint. Registered gangs are given a list of activities—like bowling in the Bronx, singing karaoke in Manhattan, or having a dance-off in Brooklyn—where they can compete against other groups for points. Then, at an appointed hour, a “manifest” is posted on Instagram for each borough, detailing photo ops where teams can earn extra points. These might include a pic of the gang at the Bronx Zoo, a Boomerang of a team member hopping a subway turnstile, or a group selfie at Times Square.

The wide array of monuments, murals, parks, and landmarks on each manifest means that no two teams take the same route through the city. But Saturday’s ride was full of chance path-crossings, usually marked by gangs whooping at one another across traffic or shouting lines from the movie. Costumed riders pedaled past late-night sidewalk parties, blasted The Warriors soundtrack from a bike-mounted boombox, and careened the wrong way down desolate streets in search of the fastest route to the next checkpoint.

“It’s incredible riding through all the boroughs with almost no cars,” said Mark Kleeb, a creative technologist from Brooklyn and a member of the team Space Force. “All the checkpoints and activities are just an excuse to bike through an empty city.”

Sixty different gangs took part this year, with some traveling from states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Oregon. Gang names often repped the riders’ neighborhoods or hometowns: the Astoria Warriors, the Hudson County Hooligans, the Jersey City Goonies, the D.C. Rejects. Others signaled a devotion to different styles of urban cycling: the Radial Leftists, the Fixie Girls, the Mullaly BMX Bozos.

Some teams nodded to a particular style of urban riding, like BMX.

Alix Piorun

“I’m most impressed with the BMX riders,” Bolger said. “I don’t think I could ride a bike like that that far.” Taking things a step further, two members of the team Rolling Stoned completed the entire ride on tall bikes. “Sure, it’s harder this way,” said Joshua Rivera, a handyman from Brooklyn. “But it’s so much more fun.”

After some nine hours, the sky began to lighten and the riders sailed through South Brooklyn toward the beach. Dazed in the sand, the gangs tallied their points. Then the top eight groups competed in one final challenge: a tug-of-war.

This year’s winners, the Boston Ruins, received $1,000 in cash. The money came from registration fees, which also paid for things like a 3 a.m. BBQ, sumo wrestling suits, and deposits at the pool hall and karaoke bar. After all these expenses, Bolger and Nieves, who spent seven months putting the event together, kept about $750 apiece.

“This ride is so uplifting every time,” Bolger said. “Usually around 4:30 a.m., I’m like, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But then when you make it to Coney Island—the boardwalk, the ocean—it’s all worth it.”

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